‘Community’ feeling proves comforting as a woolen scarf

By cracky, we all agreed that one of the values we cherish in our part of Maine is the sense of community: the feeling of familiar and familial, as in being kin without being related.

At a planning symposium last weekend, one speaker after the other mentioned the asset of “community” and how that concept needs to be preserved in our coastal and rural towns, despite the changes swirling around us like snowflakes blown from spruce boughs.

If we think about it, though, change itself can’t undo community. Otherwise, there would no longer be that cozy sense of belonging so many of us – old-timers and newcomers alike – wrap around ourselves like a woolen shawl.

Certainly, there have been changes over the many years, but those lucky towns that have survived intact did so because they’re as close-knit as boiled mittens and on some occasions, just as warm.

We don’t need a fictional “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” when we have our own to tend to. It may be flawed, but we live with its imperfections because they’re ours.

We know the faces behind the windows in most every house; we call children and their pets by name. We know when someone is having a wedding reception or a baby shower. We know what time each morning our newspaper will be delivered, and by whom. We can predict who will sell the most Girl Scout cookies. We can distinguish the sounds of truck engines, and we know who’s away – and where – for the winter.

There is something comfortable about community. We know by heart the specials at the cafe, when the gas station is closed and when our neighbors go to the post office.

We think nothing of seeing a sign at a local business that simply says, “Closed for a While,” yet another down the road proclaims “Open by Chance.” People around here don’t stand on formalities.

And, most of the time, we are even not faulted for not minding our own business. To the contrary. We pass along the word about a friend’s injury or sickness, and we worry when a boat is late coming into the harbor. We hear about elderly folks who need rides to the doctor. We know when someone’s out of work and can’t pay for heating oil.

It’s called community – this other sense – that nudges people into action and mobilizes an army of volunteers when any need arises. They bring meals to someone recuperating after surgery. They hold fund-raisers for the library. They serve on town boards and committees. They weed flowerbeds. They replace the torn flag at the entrance to town. They string lights on a community Christmas tree. They preserve historical data. They sell hundreds of squares of fudge to provide scholarships.

They respond to the need when there are lonely neighbors to visit or restless students to encourage or fire departments to join or church organs to play.

In towns and villages like ours – the ones bragged about at the gathering last weekend – we don’t need to be close enough to use the same toothpick, as the saying goes. Individually we are separated by our differences, and rightly so.

But we live together as community. And that is highly valued in our quiet, lovely part of Maine.